Torrid Immortality

Title: Truths Invited

Authors: Amber Kupy and Daquiri Seffib

Email: amber_daquiri@hotmail.com

Rating: PG to NC-17 depending on chatper

Summery: Spike visits Buffy on Valentine's Day.

Spoilers: Up until ‘Hells Bells’

Pairin: B/S

Disclaimer: We don't own the characters, we're just borrowing them.

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Truths Invited


For the second time in as many weeks Spike found himself pacing on the back porch of the Summers house, muttering to himself. He could hear the Slayer moving around inside. She no doubt knew he was there, but she hadn't come out yet.

"Right you pillock, if the poofter and captain cardboard can do this, you can do it with style. It'll be fine." Spike groaned and looked down at the items he held in his hands. "Stupid human holidays." Since the Valentine's with Dru and Angelus, Spike had come to hate the holiday with a passion he normally reserved for Buffy's exes. Bad connotations, perhaps. He wondered if he'd have to invite himself in - it didn't seem as though Buffy was about to appear any time soon.

"You can do this, all it is is giving a bleeding present to your," his pacing stopped. What exactly was he to Buffy, and Buffy to him? It had been almost two weeks since he had been on this very porch, but that night had changed everything. The simple night at home with 'his girls', some junk food and a couple of movies. Then she had changed everything.

With four little words she had altered everything. Everything. Words he had thought that he would never hear from her, "I love you too." That had been a fortnight ago, and she hadn't mentioned it since. Hot, typically destructive sex, yes. But not a lot of actual conversation had occurred in the interim. She wasn't one for over-talking a situation, his Slayer.

That led him to tonight, with a silly token of his feelings in one had and a bouquet of red roses in the other. Spike's grip was so tight that he had crushed the stems of the rose, their thorns cutting into his flesh. Terror had kept him from feeling the slights twinge of pain.

Tonight was the night, Spike was tired of the sex with no talking, no real connecting. He was here to try and woo his lady, and if that didn't work then he was going to try and end it. Buffy had given him more then a crumb that night, she had given him the whole loaf, and having had that, he was not going live off crumbs any more.

"So quit talking to yourself and go and see the lady." With an unneeded breath, Spike opened the back door and entered the kitchen. Buffy was sitting at the counter, eating a sandwich and flicking through a magazine.

She looked up when he entered, smiling the half-smile that was usually immediately followed by snide comments, but her expression faded to one of uncertainty when she saw the flowers in his hand. For the last half hour Buffy had listened to Spike pace and mumble to himself wondering what he was up to. If he had been sixty seconds longer she would have gone out to see what the problem was.

She had had a clever barb on the tip of her tongue to send his way when she heard him opening the door, but the yellow roses and confused her. "Spike?" she asked, uncertainly. "What--?"

Spike was wearing his resolve face. Looking into his earnest, icy blue eyes she wondered what was wrong. She had only ever seen anything resembling this particular expression once, when he had promised to protect her sister until the end of the world. Solemnly he handed her the bouquet, as if they were a peace offering for what was about to come. As one of the thorns drew blood Buffy winced and was even more surprised and worried when the vampire before her didn't so much as glance down at his small wound.

"Spike, what's with the sudden need for romance?" she asked, trying to
lighten the mood.

"We need to talk," the low, controlled tone terrified Buffy. Every bad conversation she had ever had had started with those words, or something similar.

Um, okay," she said, sitting down. "What's wrong?" This was it, she had
finally been too much of a bitch to him and he was leaving. 'I don't think I'm going to be able to get over him.' was her first thought, then nothing as shock descended. If he left he'd be taking more with him than Angel and Riley combined.

Anxiously the petite blond gnawed on her lip, drawing blood. As she looked into his face she realised that the bruises from the last beating she'd given him still hadn't completely faded and she felt terrible. Spike made his way to her, a gentle finger coming out to run over her injured lip. His lips soon followed, then his tongue bathed the shallow cut, cleansing it.

Buffy leaned into his tender kiss, more relieved than she was willing to admit. If he was kissing her this way, being loving and tender, then he wasn't leaving, saying goodbye, was he?

He slid an arm around her waist. "What am I to you, Buffy?" he asked, after an agonising pause. She felt as if his intense blue eyes were staring directly into her soul. "I need to know. I love you, I'd do anything for you, but I have to know. Some moments it seems as if you hate me, and yourself, for what we do. Other times I don't think I have ever seen you happier, more at peace, comfortable with who and what you are."

The Slayer sighed, looking away. "Spike...." Unsure of how to answer, she leaned in to kiss him. When he asked the hard questions, told the disturbing truths that she couldn't answer or face, this had always been the best way of putting him off.

"No, Buffy, this time I need an answer." Spike could see confusion and pain filling Buffy's hazel eyes, and almost gave in to the need to hold her, comfort and protect her. But no, they had to settle this between them.

"You want the truth, Spike? I don't know. Don't think I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about anything else." She gave a short, humourless laugh. "No wonder Dawn is so mad at me lately. I haven't been on the planet lately."

Spike stepped back, letting the Slayer pace it out, rant, it meant she was talking. More important than the words were their meaning and tone, he heard pain and confusion. But even so, pain and confusion were a definite step up from coldness, anger and denial. She hadn't even insulted him yet.

"Why does this have to happen to me? Why can't it ever be simple? Easy? Normal? Why does it have to be so hard?" the last words were spoken in a whisper. Clouded hazel eyes caught and held in pure blue, hers begging for answers, his telling her that she had them all if she just could get up enough courage to look, trust and believe in the answers between them. The look became too intense and Buffy looked away, down at the floor. "I... feel something when I'm around you. I don't know what. But I... it's good, Spike I don't want it to stop."

"Why can't you say it now? Why did you say what you did before? I know you meant it, why is it so hard to say it again?" There was no accusation in his tone, no bitterness, just genuine confusion and sadness.

"I'm scared," she said in a small voice. "It's so hard Spike. When I allow myself to really feel what I feel for you it, it's bigger then anything that I have ever known and it scares me."

"Do you think what I feel doesn't scare me? Doesn't terrify me? But luv, even the worst terror, the worst hurt, it has all been worth feeling it. I won't ever regret what I feel for you."

Spike desperately wanted a cigarette. This was more than he'd hoped for, but he couldn't help pushing just a little more. He wanted to hear the word again. Desperately needed to.

"Do you love me?" he asked, his voice low and rough.

Buffy was suddenly, unaccountably, reminded of another vampire who'd d ind in her house and asked her the same question, and she forced the memory and the accompanying twinge of old pain out of her mind. She had answered Angel honestly then, and Spike deserved no less. In fact, if anything he probably deserved more.

"Yes." Her answer was so low that had he not had vampiric hearing he would have missed it. While her answer gave him joy, the expression of loss and terror broke his heart. "You know me so well. You treat me like no one ever has before. You don't pull your punches, and you don't force me to pull mine. For some reason you have always been able to see deep down almost to the very depths of my being. I'm scared that someday you might really see the real me and not like what you see."

Spike moved close to her, slipping his arms around her waist, pulling her close. She closed her eyes, leaning into him, and buried her face in his chest. Tentatively her arms crept up around his waist and slowly tightened until she held him in a vice grip. After a moment, he realised that she was crying very quietly.

"There, love," he soothed, stroking her shoulder. "I've seen you at your... well, your pretty bad, maybe even your worst. And I'm still here, aren't I?" Spike changed his tone, hoping to get a laugh out of her, "Pet, why would I leave when we've finally gotten to the good stuff?"

"Because that's when all the others have left," came the muffled reply. Rage filled Spike, red hot and deadly. Had his grandsire been there he would have killed him without a second thought. Chip or no, Whitebread and other whelp would have suffered equally grim and painful fates.

"Slayer, if you think you're getting rid of me that easily, you've got
another think coming," he told her, continuing to run cool fingers across her skin. "Hey, I bought you a present."

"Yes, thank you for the flowers -- they're beautiful." Buffy pulled out of Spike's embrace to gather the flowers from the top of the island, where she had placed them earlier. She brought the pink buds to her nose and inhaled their lovely aroma. "I should put them in some water."

It was only after she pulled her nose out of the flowers that she noticed another item on the island. The flowers were set aside as she tentatively picked up the garish object.

"Look, it's stupid. At the time it seemed right, now, I just feel like a wanker. Give it back, I'll get you a real Valentine's Day present."

It was a small stuffed toy vampire, dressed in a little orange lined black satin cape with an upswept collar. It was the kind of thing that you might buy around Halloween, but this one was carrying a small red satin heart that read, "Be Mine". Spike reached, trying to take it back.

Buffy laughed delightedly, holding it behind her back, safely out of his reach. "He's kind of like you. All Big Bad looking, but soft and cuddly if you get close enough." She took it out, looking at it critically. "Plus, he has your fashion sense."

"Right, Slayer - give it back if you want a real present." If he could, Buffy was sure that Spike would have been blushing to the dark roots that were beginning to show.

"No," her voice was soft, and determined, her fingers were reverently tracing the white stitching on the red heart. "This is the first holiday in a long time that isn't making me wish s sos someone else, anyone else, but the Slayer. Thank you."

A smile graced Spike's lips, except this time it was devoid of its usual sarcasm and cockiness, this one reached his eyes and was so full of love and hope that Buffy's breath hitched in the back of her throat.

"And?" His voice was husky with the same emotions that shone through his crystal blue gaze.

"And what?" Buffy felt herself drowning in him, he had released something in her. The seed had taken root, and under Spike careful guidance and care it had sprouted into a wonderful bloom, full of beautiful colours filled with love and laughter, hope and joy. The flower was strong, hearty enough to weather the storms that were in front of it. In front of her, in front of them. With his tending she could face anything.

"And I love you with every fiber of my being, will you be mine?" Spike drew her to him, punctuating his plea with the tenderest of kisses on her warm lips.

"I love you too." Funny how much easier it was getting to say those words. "I'll be yours, just as you are mine." With that Buffy untangled herself from him, taking his hand she led him out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her bedroom.


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TBC...